Critics=Box Office?

So last week, there was this Slate piece in which the author, Erik Lundegaard, opened:

It’s almost a given these days that movie critics are elitist, while moviegoers are populist. When the highest-grossing films get panned by critics, what good are critics? As publishers across the country dump their reviewers, this is not exactly a rhetorical question.

Believe it or not, though, critically acclaimed films generally do better than critically panned films at the box office—if you measure their performance in the right way.

Ruh roh. And what, pray tell, is the “right way”? Ah: per screen averages!

While there were fewer “fresh” films (i.e., movies that critics liked) and they showed on fewer screens and took in less overall box office, they tended to make almost $1,000 more per screen than “rotten” movies (i.e., movies critics didn’t like). So, on a per-screen-basis, more people are following critics into theaters than not.

Sigh. There are any number of things wrong with this theory (in addition to correlation not being the same thing as causality, that is). I’ll throw out this one: the movies that Lundegaard is writing about (artsy, limited release ones) are predominately screened in major cities; major cities have higher ticket prices; ergo part of that increase in box office take is attributable to the location the tickets are sold in. I could go on, but luckily Peter Suderman has beaten me to it.

As I’ve written before, I’m very much in favor of having more movie critics. The screen (both film and TV) is the most important medium in popular culture in terms of impact–millions upon millions of people venture to the theater every week; hundreds of millions watch television every week. Having people there to discuss the themes being put forth and how they impact/reflect the culture at large is…well, maybe not “important,” but certainly worthwhile. All that’s totally irrelevant to box office take, however; if I had to guess, critics play a far, far smaller role than word of mouth (note just how impervious big releases are in their first weekend, even when per-screen average is taken into account). The role that critics play has little to do with business and everything to do with culture.